Saturday, 4 June 2016

The two Little owlets were out of their nest and flying around in the chestnut tree. It was impossible to get a clear shot of any of them among the leaves.

Their mother was watching them from the next tree.

Their father was in the tree with the young ones, but keeping his distance to avoid being bothered by them as they hopped about.

The Great Crested Grebes at the island were feeding their chick under the stern of the electric boat.

The moulting Greylag Geese are now mostly unable to fly, and if they quarrel they have to chase each other on the surface.

The Bar-Headed Goose is now moulting too. We shall have this beautiful creature on the lake for a while now.

But the other one that I photographed on 30 May was only here for one day, and has flown somewhere else to moult, probably Regent's Park.

The Mute Swans with their four cygnets were cruising on the Long Water.

There are eight cygnets in the park at the moment, and two more nests still seem to be on the go.

I couldn't find the Black Swan. But he was certainly somewhere on the lake, because he can't fly at the moment.

A family of Moorhens were enjoying a slice of pizza at the Dell restaurant.

The House Martins were visiting their nests in the stucco cornice of the Kuwaiti embassy. I think there are eight nests, two of them on opposite corners of the same plaster flower.

Several rabbits were sheltering under the Henry Moore arch. This was probably because there was a hungry-looking Grey Heron on top of the sculpture.

A dragonfly perched on a broom bush beside the Serpentine. It is a female Black-Tailed Skimmer, Orthetrum cancellatum. The bluish-grey male has the black-tipped abdomen that gives the species its name.

Update: David Element thinks it's an immature male, judging by the shape of the abdomen. The colours would be similar.

About Me

I have been coming to the park for more than 60 years, and watching and feeding the birds. I am not an expert birder, but I know and love the park.
My main camera is a Pentax K-1 with a Pentax DFA 150-450mm zoom lens. At 7lb it is just light enough to carry for several hours. I also carry a Nikon Coolpix P900 for video and near shots where depth of field is required, and for very long shots where its enormous 83x zoom (equal to a 2000mm lens) is more important than a high-quality image.

This list is of all the birds, including rare visitors, that have been seen in the park since 1889. Sources include W.H. Hudson, 1898 (the naturalist in whose memory the Rima memorial was built); A.H. Macpherson, 1929; and various publications of the London Natural History Society (LNHS) from 1935 to 1993, with an appendix added by Roy Sanderson in 1995 to bring the total to 177 species. Since then it has been updated from LNHS bird reports, many of these from observations by Des McKenzie, who wrote the predecessor of this blog.